“Stay close to the Word.” This is my battlecry… and this is my struggle. This is my joy and this is my sorrow. This is the command of our God and this is the sin of rebellion through generations of God’s people.

Why?

Sin.

So we must always, first, foremost, in vigilant carefulness… STAY CLOSE TO THE WORD OF GOD!

God’s Word offers us refuge from the world and the sin that so easily entangles us. God’s Word is our rest and sustaining bread and living water. God’s Word is the only thing that we know ‘sanctifies’ us. God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. God’s word protects and guards us with regard to sin.

Jesus Christ is the Word. He is the bread of life. He is the Living Water we thirst for.

So why… do we persist in looking elsewhere for the Way, the Truth and the Life?

“I can worship God in my own little way… He will be pleased with my sacrifice… afterall, consider what I’m willing to go without.”

“All truth is God’s truth…so I can receive truth from all sorts of origins… if it’s true. (but what if it isn’t?)

I am alive… so of course I will continue to be… alive. I don’t relate or understand that I might not be alive… eternally alive… Alive in Jesus Christ. Saved. Written down in the Book of Life… no, I am convinced on the testimony of other men that I and those I love are saved… alive. It just has to be so. Afterall, my dad… my granddad… my great granddad… well sure they weren’t perfect, but surely God loved them enough to save them. Afterall, “…for God so loved the world”. Hell is for those extreme sinners. Certainly God would not send my loved one… me… to Hell?!

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14

Do you strive for Holiness? If you don’t, be assured, you won’t see the Lord.

“..keep our center of gravity in God’s Word. If we’re not careful we can get carried away in our creativity and innovation and ideas and this and that; the reality is God has led and will lead His church according to His word and so the deeper we are in the Word, it will ground us, and when we listen to those who have come before us… and I think God will take some of the fresh, even idealistic passion that He has entrusted to pastors and leaders in our generation and will use it to His glory and in a way that spreads the gospel, instead of… if we’re not careful we can actually end up hindering the Gospel we’re claiming to be trumpeting… and advancing, we’ve got to be really careful to match that with our character… with our humility and our willingness to learn from those who have gone before us…”

If there were “one thing” to pass on to other young pastors… what would that one thing be?

“STAY CLOSE TO THE WORD…”

And now I add the following post… because it communicates a message well. Listen to it and talk to God about it…

Hello Blaine… I agree, Chan’s illustration really drives obedience home… and ‘what’ it is that we are to be obedient to… those things we’ve been given to do by our Lord. We do need to read, memorize and study… AND we need to obey… “actually clean the room”. ;]

Some favorite Truths…

1 Pet 4:12 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

1 Thes 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,
give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Jer 9:23-24 Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Prov 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

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